Annalist: A practical tool for creating, managing and sharing evolving linked data

Conference item

Annalist is a software system for individuals and small groups to reap the benefits of using RDF linked data, supporting them to easily create data that participates in a wider web of linked data. It presents a flexible web interface for creating, editing and browsing evolvable data, without requiring the user to be familiar with minutiae of the RDF model or syntax, or to perform any programming, HTML coding or prior configuration.

Development of Annalist was motivated by data capture and sharing concerns in a small bioinformatics research group, and customized personal information management. Requirements centre particularly on achieving low activation energy for simple tasks, flexibility to add structural details as data is collected, access-controlled sharing, and ability to connect private data with public data on the web. It is designed as a web server application, presenting an interface for defining data structure and managing data. Data is stored as text files that are amenable to access by existing software, with the intent that a range of applications may be used in concert to gather, manage and publish data.

During its development, Annalist has been used in a range of applications, which have informed decisions about its design and proven its flexibility and robustness in use. It has been particularly effective in exploring and rapid prototyping designs for linked data on the web, covering science and humanities research, creative art and personal information.

Authors: Klyne, G; Willoughby, C; Page, K

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: CEUR Workshop Proceedings
• Host title: Linked Data on the Web workshop, WWW 2016 conference
• Journal: CEUR Workshop Proceedings
• Publication date: 2016-08-16
• Acceptance date: 2016-02-10
• ISSN: 1613-0073
• Keywords: linked data; semantic web; data management